Worcester City 3 King's Lynn 1

21st March 1998

WORCESTER City all but ended Lynn's hopes of promotion for the second successive season on Saturday.
A fortunate win at The Walks ruled the Linnets out of the promotion race last season, but it was a much improved Worcester side that made Lynn's title ambitions an almost impossibility this time round.
"We were beaten fair and square and gave away two soft goals from throw-ins," said Morris, who, was celebrating his 150th game in charge.
Both sides had gone in to Saturday's clash with some impressive results behind them. Worcester had won 13 of their last 14 home games, while the Linnets went to St George's Lane on the back of a 11 match unbeaten run.
And it looked as though Lynn were going to extend that record even further with a superbly worked goal after six minutes.
Teenage sensation Mark Paul, enjoying his first start in a Linnets shirt, picked the ball up inside his own half.
His lightning pace enabled him to leave several home players in his wake before threading a pass through to Steve Riches on the left, who in turn crossed to Steve Williams to smash the ball home.
Three minutes later, though. Worcester were track on level terms when the Linnets defence failed to clear Jason Bumham's throw-in into the box before Mark Owen fired home.
Williams then received his 12th caution of the season for dissent in the 15th minute, before Morris replaced the goalscorer with Simon Mead a few minutes later.
The Linnets leading scorer reluctantly trudged off the field to the dressing room before watching the second half proceedings from behind the Worcester goal. After the match, Williams said: "Your guess is as good as mine as to why I was replaced.
"As far as I’m concerned, I did nothing wrong, and all I did was ask the referee why I had been given offside. I believe I shouldn't have been taken off."
But manager Morris, who refused to say whether Williams would play tonight, replied: "I couldn’t afford to have Steve sent off and did it to protect him. The last thing we wanted was to be left with only ten players.
"Steve must learn to control himself and stop picking up bookings."
Thirteen minutes before the break, Worcester took the lead from Burnham’s penalty kick after Tony Spearing had been adjudged to handle the ball in the box.
The names of Riches and Davis followed that of Williams into the book for late tackles before Lynn’s cause was made even worse five minutes before the interval by the departure of Spearing with a hamstring injury.
On the stroke of half time, Duncan Roberts used all of his six foot frame to pull off a stunning save from Worcester's Owen, who was a constant thorn in Lynn's 'side during the 90 minutes.
Lynn were the brighter of the two sides for the opening 15 minutes of the second half with Paul showing some nice touches when the ball was played to his feet.
Brett McNamara was left cursing his luck in the 60th minute after Paul Moore acrobatically tipped his volt over the bar.
In the 65th minutes Worcester's Michael Griffiths netted his side's third when the pacey forward raced on to Ian Cottrill's long ball before unleash Lynn: D Roberts, Matthews, Riches, Hoyle, Davis, Spearing (Wright 40), Pascoe, Cotterell, Williams (Mead 21), McNamara, Paul. Sub (not used) Hollman.
Worcester: Moore, Power, Burnham, Greenham, Molloy, Heeley, Woods, Griffiths, Owen, Hillman, Cottrill. Sub (not used) Hemstock, Rouse, Wood.

MATCH STATISTICS	Shots on Target	Shots off Target	Corners	Caught Offside	Free kicks Conceded	Bookings
Lynn	4	3	4	2	17	Williams (dissent, 15) Davis (foul, 25) Riches (foul,34)
Worcester	6	4	8	3	17	Greenham (foul, 59)